In the Beginning

Were the Words

A Look at the First Chapters
of Genesis through Poetry

David W. Jones

The life and power of poetry

consists in its ability to step out of itself,
tear off a fragment of religion,
And then return into itself and absorb it.
Friedrich Schlegel

A Poets affair is with God,

to whom he is accountable,
and of whom is his reward.
Robert Browning

Contents
Introduction ...................................................................................... 5
Chapter One: Words........................................................................ 6
Chapter Two: Good....................................................................... 10
Chapter Three: Wild ...................................................................... 16
Chapter Four: Work....................................................................... 19
Chapter Five: Rest .......................................................................... 23
Chapter Six: Responsibility ........................................................... 25
Chapter Seven: Relationship ......................................................... 27
Chapter Eight: Authority .............................................................. 32
Chapter Nine: Regret ..................................................................... 34
Chapter Ten: Hiding ...................................................................... 38
Chapter Eleven: Mortal ................................................................. 42
Chapter Twelve: Journey ............................................................... 50
Chapter Thirteen: Parenting ......................................................... 56
Chapter Fourteen: Absence .......................................................... 64
Chapter Fifteen : Presence ............................................................ 68

Then he told me, In the part I was reading it

says the Word was in the beginning, and thats
right. I used to think water was first, but if you
listen carefully you will hear that the words are
underneath the water.
Thats because you are a preacher first and
then a fisherman, I told him. If you ask Paul, he
will tell you that the words are formed out of
water.
No, my father said, you are not listening
carefully. The water runs over the words.
Norman Maclean A River Runs Through It

Introduction
The following poems are some of my favorites.
The intention of this book is to share these personal
treasures with my children and close friends, to show
how the poetry can be used to study life and
scripture, and to promote both these poems and the
poets who wrote them.
I no more have permission from publisher or
poet to use these verses than I have authorization
from Adam, Eve or the writers of Genesis to put their
stories here. As a result, this book is for promotion
and not profit. If you have found your hands upon a
copy, consider yourself a cherished soul. If you find
in this book a poem that speaks to you, then take the
time to explore the artists other works.
David W. Jones
2009

Chapter One: Words

John 1: In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Genesis 1: 3 Then God said, Let there be light; and
there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was
good
Psalm 33: 6 By the word of the LORD the heavens
were made,
and all their host by the breath of his mouth. 9 For he
spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it
stood firm.

The Song of Creation

Rig-Veda
(Translated by F. Max Muller)
Then was not non-existent nor existent:
there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.
What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter?
Was water there, unfathomed depth of water?
Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal:
no sign was there, the days and nights divider.
That one thing, breathless, breathed by its own
nature:
Apart from it was nothing whatsoever

The Creation
James Weldon Johnson
AND God stepped out on space,
And He looked around and said,
"I'm lonely -I'll make me a world."
And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.
Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said, "That's good!"

On Reading Poems to a Senior Class at South

High
D.C. Berry
Before
I opened my mouth
I noticed them sitting there
as orderly as frozen fish
in a package.
Slowly water began to fill the room
though I did not notice it
till it reached
my ears
and then I heard the sounds
of fish in an aquarium
and I knew that though I had
tried to drown them
with my words
that they had only opened up
like gills for them
and let me in.
Together we swam around the room
like thirty tails whacking words
till the bell rand
puncturing
a hole in the door
where we all leaked out
They went to another class
I suppose and I home
where Queen Elizabeth
my cat met me
and licked my fins
till they were hands again.

Chapter Two: Good

Genesis 1: 3 Then God said, Let there be light; and

there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was
good

Lost
David Wagoner
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying
Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

10

God's World
Edna St. Vincent Millay
O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists, that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!
Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this:
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart,Lord, I do fear
Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year;
My soul is all but out of me,let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
Walt Whitman
When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns
before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add,
divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he
lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to
time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
11

Red Clay Blues

Langston Hughes & Richard Wright
I miss that red clay, Lawd, I
Need to feel it in my shoes.
Says miss that red clay, Lawd, I
Need to feel it in my shoes.
I want to get to Georgia cause I
Got them red clay blues.
Pavements hard on my feet, Im
Tired o this concrete street.
Pavements hard on my feet, Im
Tired ol this city street.
Goin back to Georgia where
That red clay cant be beat.
I want to tramp in the red mud, Lawd, and
Feel the red clay round my toes.
I want to wade in that red mud,
Feel that red clay suckin at my toes.
I want my little farm back and I
Dont care where that landlord goes.
I want to be in Georgia, when the
Big storm starts to blow.
Yes, I want to be in Georgia when that
Big storm starts to blow.
I want to see the landlords runnin cause I
Wonder where they gonna go!
I got them red clay blues.

12

What The Dog Perhaps Hears

Lisel Mueller
If an inaudible whistle
blown between our lips
can send him home to us,
then silence is perhaps
the sound of spiders breathing
and roots mining the earth;
it may be asparagus heaving,
headfirst, into the light
and the long brown sound
of cracked cups, when it happens.
We would like to ask the dog
if there is a continuous whir
because the child in the house
keeps growing, if the snake
really stretches full length
without a click and the sun
breaks through clouds without
a decibel of effort,
whether in autumn, when the trees
dry up their wells, there isn't a shudder
too high for us to hear.
What is it like up there
above the shut-off level
of our simple ears?
For us there was no birth cry,
the newborn bird is suddenly here,
the egg broken, the nest alive,
and we heard nothing when the world changed.

13

Sayings of the Blind

William Stafford
Feeling is believing.
Mountains dont exist. But their slopes do.
Little people have low voices.
All things, even rocks, make a little noise.
The silence back of all sound is called the sky.
There is a big stranger in town called the sun.
He doesnt speak to us but puts out a hand.
Night opens a door into a cellar
you can smell it coming.
On Sundays everyone stands farther apart.
Velvet feels black.
Meeting cement is never easy.
What do they mean when they say night is gloomy?
Edison didnt invent much.
Whenever you wake up its morning.
Names have a flavor.

14

The First
Wendell Berry
The first man who whistled
thought he had a wren in his mouth.
He went around all day
with his lips puckered,
afraid to swallow.

Psalm 100
All Lands Summoned to Praise God
A Psalm of thanksgiving.
1 Make
2

a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth.

Worship the LORD with gladness;
come into his presence with singing.

3 Know

that the LORD is God.

It is he that made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter

his gates with thanksgiving,

and his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him, bless his name.

5 For

the LORD is good;

his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.

15

Chapter Three: Wild

Genesis 3: Now the serpent was more crafty than
any other wild animal that the LORD God had made
The Lamb
William Blake
Little Lamb, who made thee
Does thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing woolly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice.
Making all the vales rejoice:
Little Lamb who made thee
Does thou know who made thee
Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb I'll tell thee;
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by His name,
Little Lamb God bless thee,
Little Lamb God bless thee.

16

The Tyger
William Blake
Tyger Tyger. burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye.
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat.
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp.
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile His work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

17

The Peace of Wild Things

Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron
feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

18

Chapter Four: Work

Genesis 2: 15 The LORD God took the man and put
him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.
Be Strong
Maltbie D. Babcock
Be strong!
We are not here to play, to dream, to drift,
We have hard work to do, and loads to lift.
Shun not the struggle; face it. 'Tis God's gift.
Be strong!
Say not the days are evil, - Who's to blame?
And fold not the hands and acquiesce, - O shame!
Stand up, speak out, and bravely, in God's name.
Be strong!
It matters not how deep entrenched the wrong,
How hard the battle goes, the day, how long.
Faint not, fight on! To-morrow comes the song.
I shall not live in vain
Emily Dickinson
I shall not live in vain:
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
19

To be of use
Marge Piercy
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a
heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things
forward,
who do what has to be done again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hope vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

20

If
Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
men are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
but make allowances for their doubting, too.
If you can wait but not be tired of waiting,
or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
and yet don't look too good nor talk too wise,
If you can dream but not make dreams your master,
if you can think and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with triumph and disaster,
and treat those two imposters just the same,
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
and stoop and build them up with worn-out tools,
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss,
And lose and start again at your beginnings
and never breathe a word about your loss,
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
to serve your turn long after they are gone,
And to hold on when there is nothing in you
but the will that says to them "hold on,"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
or walk with kings nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
if all men count with you but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
with 60 seconds worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
and which is more, you'll be a man, my son.
21

Those Winter Sundays

Robert Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
Sabbaths
Wendell Berry
Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day to day.
Vision held open in the dark
By our ten thousand days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.
And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap,
Great work is done while were asleep.
When we work well, a Sabbath mood
Rests on our day, and finds it good.
22

Chapter Five: Rest

Genesis 2: Thus the heavens and the earth were
finished, and all their multitude. 2 And on the seventh
day God finished the work that he had done, and he
rested on the seventh day from all the work that he
had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and
hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the
work that he had done in creation.

Morning Person
Vassar Miller
God, best at making in the morning, tossed
stars and planets, singing and dancing, rolled
Saturns rings spinning and humming, twirled the
earth
so hard it coughed and spat the moon up, brilliant
bubble floating around it for good, stretched holy
hands till birds in nervous sparks flew forth from
them and beasts lizards, big and little, apes,
lions, elephants, dogs and cats cavorting,
tumbling over themselves, dizzy with joy when
God made us in the morning too, both man
and woman, leaving Adam no time for
sleep so nimbly was Eve bouncing out of
his side till as night came everything and
everybody, growing tired, declined, sat
down in one soft descended Hallelujah.

23

Let Evening Come

Jane Kenyon
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.
Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.
To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.
Let it come, as it will, and don't
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

24

Chapter Six: Responsibility

Genesis 1: 28 God blessed them, and God said to
them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and
subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea
and over the birds of the air and over every living
thing that moves upon the earth. 29 God said, See, I
have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon
the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in
its fruit; you shall have them for food. 30 And to every
beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to
everything that creeps on the earth, everything that
has the breath of life, I have given every green plant
for food. And it was so.
Genesis 2: 18 Then the LORD God said, It is not
good that the man should be alone; I will make him a
helper as his partner. 19 So out of the ground the
LORD God formed every animal of the field and every
bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see
what he would call them; and whatever the man
called every living creature, that was its name.

25

Traveling Through The Dark

William Stafford
Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more
dead.
By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.
My fingers touching her side brought me the reason-her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.
The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.
I thought hard for us all--my only swerving--,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.

26

Chapter Seven: Relationship

Genesis 2: 18 Then the LORD God said, It is not
good that the man should be alone; I will make him a
helper as his partner. 19 So out of the ground the
LORD God formed every animal of the field and every
bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see
what he would call them; and whatever the man
called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The
man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the
air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man
there was not found a helper as his partner. 21 So the
LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man,
and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed
up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the LORD
God had taken from the man he made into a woman
and brought her to the man.
Never Again Would Bird's Song Be The Same
Robert Frost
He would declare and could himself believe
That the birds there in all the garden round
From having heard the daylong voice of Eve
Had added to their own an oversound,
Her tone of meaning but without the words.
Admittedly an eloquence so soft
Could only have had an influence on birds
When call or laughter carried it aloft.
Be that as may be, she was in their song.
Moreover her voice upon their voices crossed
Had now persisted in the woods so long
That probably it never would be lost.
Never again would birds' song be the same.
And to do that to birds was why she came.
27

28

Those Who Love

Sara Teasdale
Those who love the most,
Do not talk of their love,
Francesca, Guinevere,
Deirdre, Iseult, Heloise,
In the fragrant gardens of heaven
Are silent, or speak if at all
Of fragile inconsequent things.
And a woman I used to know
Who loved one man from her youth,
Against the strength of the fates
Fighting in somber pride
Never spoke of this thing,
But hearing his name by chance,
A light would pass over her face.
He Wishes For The Clothes of Heaven
W.B. Yeats
Had I the heavens embroidered cloths
Enwrought with golden and silver light
The blue and the dim
and the dark cloths
of night and light and the half light
I would spread the cloths under your feet
But I, being poor, have only my dreams
I have spread my dreams
under your feet
Tread softly because you tread
on my dreams

29

The Imperfect Paradise

Linda Pastan
If God had stopped work after the fifth day
With Eden full of vegetables and fruits,
If oak and lilac held exclusive sway
Over a kingdom made of stems and roots,
If landscape were the genius of creation
And neither man nor serpent played a role
And God must look to wind for lamentation
And not to picture postcards of the soul,
Would he have rested on his bank of cloud
With nothing in the universe to lose,
Or would he hunger for a human crowd?
Which would a wise and just creator choose:
The green hosannas of a budding leaf
Or the strict contract between love and grief?

30

Reluctance
Robert Frost
Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question "Whither?"
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

31

Chapter Eight: Authority

Genesis 3: Now the serpent was more crafty than
any other wild animal that the LORD God had made.
He said to the woman, Did God say, You shall not
eat from any tree in the garden?
Ed
Louis Simpson
Ed was in love with a cocktail waitress,
but Eds family, and his friends,
didnt approve. So he broke it off.
He married a respectable woman
who played the piano. She played well enough
to have been a professional
Eds wife left him
Years later, at a family gathering
Ed got drunk and made a fool of himself.
He said, I should have married Doreen.
Well, they said, why didnt you?

32

The Star in the Hills

William Stafford
A star hit in the hills behind our house
up where the grass turns brown touching the sky.
Meteors have hit the world before, but this was near,
and since TV; few saw, but many felt the shock.
The state of California owns that land
(and out from shore three miles), and any stars that
come will be roped off and viewed on week days 8 to
5.
A guard who took the oath of loyalty and denied any
police record told me this:
If you dont have a police record yet
you could take the oath and get a job
if California should be hit by another star.
Id promise to be loyal to California
and to guard any stars that hit it, I said,
or any place three miles out from shore,
unless the star was bigger than the state
in which case Id be loyal to it.
But he said no exceptions were allowed,
and he leaned against the state-owned meteor
so calm and puffed a cork tip cigarette
that I looked down and traced with my foot in the
dust
and thought again and said, OK any star.

33

Chapter Nine: Regret

Scriptural image: Genesis 3: 6 So when the
woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that
it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to
be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and
ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was
with her, and he ate.
The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

34

The Debt
Paul Lawrence Dunbar
This is the price I pay
Just for one riotous day
Years of regret and of grief,
And sorrow without relief.
Suffer it I will, my friend,
Suffer it until the end,
Until the grave shall give relief.
Small was the thing I bought,
Small was the thing at best,
Small was the debt, I thought,
But, O God! the interest.

35

The Portrait
Stanley Kunitz
My mother never forgave my father
for killing himself,
especially at such an awkward time
and in a public park,
that spring
when I was waiting to be born.
She locked his name
in her deepest cabinet
and would not let him out,
though I could hear him thumping.
When I came down from the attic
with the pastel portrait in my hand
of a long-lipped stranger
with a brave moustache
and deep brown level eyes,
she ripped it into shreds
without a single word
and slapped me hard.
In my sixty-fourth year
I can feel my cheek
still burning.

36

Psalm 51
1 Have

mercy on me, O God,

according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For

I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are justified in your sentence
and blameless when you pass judgment.
10 Create

in me a clean heart, O God,

and put a new and right spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me away from your presence,
and do not take your holy spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and sustain in me a willing spirit.

37

Chapter Ten: Hiding

Genesis 3: 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and
they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig
leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

We Wear the Mask

Paul Lawrence Dunbar
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile;
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To Thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

38

The Village Burglar

Anonymous
Under a spreading gooseberry bush
The village burglar lies;
The burglar is a hairy man
With whiskers round his eyes.
He goes to church on Sundays;
To hear the Parson shout;
He puts a penny in the plate
And takes a shilling out

Not Waving But Drowning

Stevie Smith
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave
way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

39

Minstrel Man
Langston Hughes
Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter
And my throat
Is deep with song,
You do not think
I suffer after
I have held my pain
So long?
Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter,
You do not hear
My inner cry?
Because my feet
Are gay with dancing
You do not know
I die?

Liars
Langston Hughes
It is we who are liars:
The Pretenders-to-be who are not
And the Pretenders-not-to-be who are.
It is we who use words
As screens for thoughts
And weave dark garments
To cover the naked body
Of the too white Truth.
It is we with the civilized souls
Who are liars.

40

New Yorkers
Edward Field
Everywhere else in the country, if someone asks,
How are you? you are required to answer,
like a phrase book, Fine, and you?
Only in New York can you say, Not so good, or even
Rotten, and launch into your miseries and symptoms,
then yawn and look bored when they interrupt
to go into endless detail about their own.
Nodding mechanically, you look at your watch.
Look, angel, I've got to run, I'm late for my...uh...
uh....analyst. But let's definitely
get together soon.
In just as sincere a voice as yours,
they come back with, Definitely!
and both of you know what that means,
Never.
Revelation
Robert Frost
We make ourselves a place apart
Behind light words that tease and flout,
But oh, the agitated heart
Till someone find us really out.
'Tis pity if the case require
(Or so we say) that in the end
We speak the literal to inspire
The understanding of a friend.
But so with all, from babes that play
At hide-and-seek to God afar,
So all who hide too well away
Must speak and tell us where they are.

41

Chapter Eleven: Mortal

Genesis 3: 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat
bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you
were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall
return.
Common Dust
Georgia Douglas Johnson
And who shall separate the dust
What later we shall be:
Whose keen discerning eye will scan
And solve the mystery?
The high, the low, the rich, the poor,
The black, the white, the red,
And all the chromatic between,
Of whom shall it be said:
Here lies the dust of Africa;
Here are the sons of Rome;
Here lies the one unlabled,
The world at large his home!
Can one then separate the dust?
Will mankind lie apart,
When life has settled back again
The same as from the start?

42

Is my team plowing
A. E. Housman
Is my team plowing,
That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle
When I was man alive?
Aye, the horses trample,
The harness jingles now;
No change though you lie
under
The land you used to
plow.
Is football playing
Along the river shore,
With lads to chase the
leather,
Now I stand up no more?
Aye, the ball is flying,
The lads play heart and
soul;
The goal stands up, the
keeper
Stands up to keep the
goal.

Is my girl happy,
That I thought hard to
leave
And has she tired of
weeping
As she lies down at eve?
Aye, she lies down lightly,
She lies not down to weep:
Your girl is well contented.
Be still, my lad, and sleep.
Is my friend hearty,
Now I am thin and pine;
And has he found to sleep in
A better bed than mine?
Yes, lad, I lie easy,
I lie as lads would choose;
I cheer a dead mans
sweetheart,
Never ask me whose.

43

Otherwise
Jane Kenyon
I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

44

after minor surgery

Linda Pastan
this is the dress rehearsal
when the body like a constant lover
flirts for the first time with faithlessness
when the body like a passenger on a long journey
hears the conductor call out
the name of the first stop
when the body in all its fear and cunning
makes promises to me
it knows
it cannot keep

Death of an Old Seaman

Langston Hughes
We buried him high on a windy hill,
But his soul went out to sea.
I know, for I heard, when all was still,
His sea-soul say to me:
Put no tombstone at my head,
For here Id o not make my bed.
Strew no flowers on my grave,
Ive gone back to the wind and wave.
Do not, do not weep for me,
For I am happy with my sea.

45

One Art
Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

46

Shirt
Carl Sandburg
I REMEMBER once I ran after you and tagged the
fluttering
shirt of you in the wind.
Once many days ago I drank a glassful of something
and
the picture of you shivered and slid on top of the
stuff.
And again it was nobody else but you I heard in the
singing voice of a careless humming woman.
One night when I sat with chums telling stories at a
bonfire flickering red embers, in a language its
own
talking to a spread of white stars:
It was you that slunk laughing
in the clumsy staggering shadows.
Broken answers of remembrance let me know you
are
alive with a peering phantom face behind a
doorway
somewhere in the city's push and fury
Or under a pack of moss and leaves waiting in silence
under a twist of oaken arms ready as ever to run
away again when I tag the fluttering shirt of you.
Poem
Wendell Berry
Willing to die
you give up
your will, keep still
until, moved
by what moves
all else, you move.
47

Confession
Charles Bukowski
waiting for death
like a cat
that will jump on the
bed
I am so very sorry for
my wife
she will see this
stiff
white
body
shake it once, then
maybe
again
"Hank!"
Hank won't
answer.

it's not my death that

worries me, it's my wife
left with this
pile of
nothing.
I want to
let her know
though
that all the nights
sleeping
beside her
even the useless
arguments
were things
ever splendid
and the hard
words
I ever feared to
say
can now be
said:
I love
you.

48

When Death Comes

Mary Oliver

When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his
purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measles-pox;
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it is over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

49

Chapter Twelve: Journey

Genesis 3: 23 the LORD God sent him forth from the

garden of Eden
God speaks to each of us
Rainer Maria Rilke
(Translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
Then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
Go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like a flame
And make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.

50

Reading Moby-Dick at 30,000 Feet

Tony Hoagland
At this height, Kansas
is just a concept,
a checkerboard design of wheat and corn
no larger than the foldout section
of my neighbor's travel magazine.
At this stage of the journey
I would estimate the distance
between myself and my own feelings
is roughly the same as the mileage
from Seattle to New York,
so I can lean back into the upholstered interval
between Muzak and lunch,
a little bored, a little old and strange.
I remember, as a dreamy
backyard kind of kid,
tilting up my head to watch
those planes engrave the sky
in lines so steady and so straight
they implied the enormous concentration
of good men,
but now my eyes flicker
from the in-flight movie
to the stewardess's pantyline,
then back into my book,

51

where men throw harpoons at something

much bigger and probably
better than themselves,
wanting to kill it,
wanting to see great clouds of blood erupt
to prove that they exist.
Imagine being born and growing up,
rushing through the world for sixty years
at unimaginable speeds.
Imagine a century like a room so large,
a corridor so long
you could travel for a lifetime
and never find the door,
until you had forgotten
that such a thing as doors exist.
Better to be on board the Pequod,
with a mad one-legged captain
living for revenge.
Better to feel the salt wind
spitting in your face,
to hold your sharpened weapon high,
to see the glisten
of the beast beneath the waves.
What a relief it would be
to hear someone in the crew
cry out like a gull,
Oh Captain, Captain!
Where are we going now?

52

The Day Millicent Found the World

William Stafford
Every morning Millicent ventured farther
into the woods. At first she stayed
near light, the edge where bushes grew, where
her way back appeared in glimpses among
dark trunks behind her. Then by farther paths
or openings where giant pines had fallen
she explored ever deeper into
the interior, till one day she stood under a great
dome among columns, the heart of the forest, and
knew:
Lost. She had achieved a mysterious world
where any direction would yield only surprise

The Way It Is
William Stafford
Theres a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesnt change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you cant get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop times unfolding.
You dont ever let go of the thread.

53

Your World
Georgia Douglas Johnson
Your world is as big as you make it
I know, for I used to abide
in the narrowest nest in a corner,
my wings pressing close to my side.
But I sighted the distant horizon
where the skyline encircles the sea
and I throbbed with a burning desire
to travel this immensity.
I battered the cordons around me
and cradled my wings on the breeze
then soared to the uttermost reaches
with rapture, with power, with ease.
Zen and the Art of Peanut Butter
W.G. McDonald
First, seek the most direct path
leading to the pantry.
Focus on the jar itself.
Reveal the contents
with a reverse spiral motion.
Delicately insert the knife.
Delicately withdraw the knife.
As if applying salve
to the infinite being himself,
spread the contents
on the leavened slice.
Attentively lick the remainder
from the blade,
and throw the sandwich away.

54

Search
Langston Hughes
All life is but the climbing of a hill
To seek the sun that ranges far beyond
Confused with stars and lesser lights anon,
And planets where the darkness reigneth still.
All life is but the seeking for that sun
That never lets one living atom die
That flames beyond the circles of the eye
Where Never and Forever are as one.
And seeking always through this human span
That spreads its drift of years beneath the sky
Confused with living, goeth simple man
Unknowing and unknown into the Why
The Why that flings itself beyond the Sun
And back in space to where Time was begun.
Our journey had advanced
Emily Dickinson
Our journey had advanced.
Our feet were almost come
To that odd fork in Beings road
Eternity by term.
Our pace took sudden awe.
Our feet reluctant led.
Before were cities, but between
The forest of the dead.
Retreat was out of hope,
Behind, a sealed route,
Eternitys white flag before,
And God at every gate.

55

Chapter Thirteen: Parenting

Genesis 4: Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she
conceived and bore Cain, saying, I have produced a
man with the help of the LORD. 2 Next she bore his
brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and
Cain a tiller of the ground.
The Summer-Camp Bus
Pulls Away from the Curb Sharon Olds
Whatever he needs, he has or doesnt
have by now.
Whatever the world is going to do to him
it has started to do. With a pencil and two
Hardy Boys and a peanut butter sandwich and
grapes he is on his way, there is nothing
more we can do for him. Whatever is
stored in his heart, he can use, now.
Whatever he has laid up in his mind
he can call on. What he does not have
he can lack. The bus gets smaller and smaller, as one
folds a flag at the end of a ceremony,
onto itself, and onto itself, until
only a heavy wedge remains.
Whatever his exuberant soul
can do for him, it is doing right now.
Whatever his arrogance can do
it is doing to him. Everything
thats been done to him, he will now do.
Everything thats been placed in him
will come out, now, the contents of a trunk
unpacked and lined up on a bunk in the underpine
light.

56

A Story
Li-Young Lee
Sad is the man who is asked for a story
and can't come up with one.
His five-year-old son waits in his lap.
Not the same story, Baba. A new one.
The man rubs his chin, scratches his ear.
In a room full of books in a world
of stories, he can recall
not one, and soon, he thinks, the boy
will give up on his father.
Already the man lives far ahead, he sees
the day this boy will go. Don't go!
Hear the alligator story! The angel story once more!
You love the spider story. You laugh at the spider.
Let me tell it!
But the boy is packing his shirts,
he is looking for his keys. Are you a god,
the man screams, that I sit mute before you?
Am I a god that I should never disappoint?
But the boy is here. Please, Baba, a story?
It is an emotional rather than logical equation,
an earthly rather than heavenly one,
which posits that a boy's supplications
and a father's love add up to silence.

57

Boy at the Window

Richard Wilbur
Seeing the snowman standing all alone
In dusk and cold is more than he can bear.
The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare
A night of gnashings and enormous moan.
His tearful sight can hardly reach to where
The pale-faced figure with bitumen eyes
Returns him such a god-forsaken stare
As outcast Adam gave to Paradise.
The man of snow is, nonetheless, content,
Having no wish to go inside and die.
Still, he is moved to see the youngster cry.
Though frozen water is his element,
He melts enough to drop from one soft eye
A trickle of the purest rain, a tear
For the child at the bright pane surrounded by
Such warmth, such light, such love, and so much
fear.

58

At The Smithville Methodist Church

Stephen Dunn
It was supposed to be Arts & Crafts for a week,
but when she came home
with the "Jesus Saves" button, we knew what art
was up, what ancient craft.
She liked her little friends. She liked the songs
they sang when they weren't
twisting and folding paper into dolls.
What could be so bad?
Jesus had been a good man, and putting faith
in good men was what
we had to do to stay this side of cynicism,
that other sadness.
OK, we said, One week. But when she came home
singing "Jesus loves me,
the Bible tells me so," it was time to talk.
Could we say Jesus
doesn't love you? Could I tell her the Bible
is a great book certain people use
to make you feel bad? We sent her back
without a word.
It had been so long since we believed, so long
since we needed Jesus
as our nemesis and friend, that we thought he was
sufficiently dead,

59

that our children would think of him like Lincoln

or Thomas Jefferson.
Soon it became clear to us: you can't teach disbelief
to a child,
only wonderful stories, and we hadn't a story
nearly as good.
On parents' night there were the Arts & Crafts
all spread out
like appetizers. Then we took our seats
in the church
and the children sang a song about the Ark,
and Hallelujah
and one in which they had to jump up and down
for Jesus.
I can't remember ever feeling so uncertain
about what's comic, what's serious.
Evolution is magical but devoid of heroes.
You can't say to your child
"Evolution loves you." The story stinks
of extinction and nothing
exciting happens for centuries. I didn't have
a wonderful story for my child
and she was beaming. All the way home in the car
she sang the songs,
occasionally standing up for Jesus.
There was nothing to do
but drive, ride it out, sing along
in silence.

60

Wrist-wrestling father
Orval Lund
for my father
On the maple wood we placed our elbows
and gripped hands, the object to bend
the other's arm to the kitchen table.
We flexed our arms and waited for the sign.
I once shot a wild goose.
I once stood not twenty feet from a buck deer
unnoticed.
I've seen a woods full of pink lady slippers.
I once caught a 19-inch trout on a tiny fly.
I've seen the Pacific, I've seen the Atlantic,
I've watched whales in each.
I once heard Lenny Bruce tell jokes.
I've seen Sandy Koufax pitch a baseball.
I've heard Paul Desmond play the saxophone.
I've been to London to see the Queen.
I've had dinner with a Nobel Prize poet.
I wrote a poem once with every word but one just
right.
I've fathered two fine sons
and loved the same woman for twenty-five years.
But I've never been more amazed
than when I snapped my father's arm down to the
table.

61

First Lesson
Phillip Booth
Lie back, daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream,
and look up, laugh at the gulls. A deadmans-float is face down. You will dive
and swim soon enough where this tidewater
ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe
me, when you tire on the long thrash
to the island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back and the sea will hold you.

62

A Poem for Emily

Miller Williams
Small fact and fingers and farthest one from me,
a hands width and two generations away,
in this still present I am fifty-three.
You are not yet a full day.
When I am sixty-three, when you are ten,
and you are neither closer nor as far,
your arms will fill with what you know by then,
the arithmetic and love we do and are.
When I by blood and luck am eighty-six
and you are someplace else and thirty-three
believing in sex and God and politics
with children who look not at all like me,
sometime I know you will have read them this
so they will know I love them and say so
and love their mother. Child, whatever is
is always or never was. Long ago
a day I watched awhile beside your bed,
I wrote this down, a thing that might be kept
awhile, to tell you what I would have said
when you were who knows what and I was dead
which is I stood and loved you while you slept.

63

Chapter Fourteen: Absence

Genesis 4: 8 Cain said to his brother Abel, Let us go
out to the field. And when they were in the field,
Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him.
Psalm 10 1Why, O LORD, do you stand far off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
Apparently with no surprise
Emily Dickinson
Apparently with no surprise
To any happy flower,
The frost beheads at its play
In accidental power.
The blond assassin passes on,
The sun proceeds unmoved
To measure off another day
For an approving God.
The Sandy Hole
Jane Kenyon
The infants coffin no bigger than a flightbag
The young father steps backward from the sandy hole,
eyes wide and dry, his hand over his mouth.
No one dares to come near him, even to touch his sleeve.

64

Ballad of Birmingham (On the bombing of a church in

Birmingham, Alabama, 1963) Dudley Randall
"Mother dear, may I go downtown
Instead of out to play,
And march the streets of Birmingham
In a Freedom March today?"
"No, baby, no, you may not go,
For the dogs are fierce and wild,
And clubs and hoses, guns and jails
Aren't good for a little child."
"But, mother, I won't be alone.
Other children will go with me,
And march the streets of Birmingham
To make our country free."
"No, baby, no, you may not go,
For I fear those guns will fire.
But you may go to church instead
And sing in the children's choir."
She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,
And bathed rose petal sweet,
And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,
And white shoes on her feet.
The mother smiled to know that her child
Was in the sacred place,
But that smile was the last smile
To come upon her face.
For when she heard the explosion,
Her eyes grew wet and wild.
She raced through the streets of Birmingham
Calling for her child.
She clawed through bits of glass and brick,
Then lifted out a shoe.
"O, here's the shoe my baby wore,
But, baby, where are you?"

65

Psalm
Reed Whittemore
The Lord feeds some of His prisoners better than others.
It could be said of Him that He is not a just god but an
indifferent god.
That He is not to be trusted to reward the righteous
and punish the unscrupulous.
That He maketh the poor poorer but is otherwise
undependable.
It could be said of Him that it is His school for the germane
that produced
the Congressional Record.
That it is His vision of justice that gave us cost accounting.
It could be said of Him that though we walk with Him all
the days of our lives we will never fathom Him
Because He is empty.
These are the dark images of our Lord
That make it seem needful for us to pray not unto Him
But ourselves.
But when we do that we find that indeed we are truly lost
And we rush back into the safer fold, impressed by His care
for us.

66

Confluents
Christina Rossetti
As rivers seek the sea,
Much more deep than they,
So my soul seeks thee
Far away:
As running rivers moan
On their course alone
So I moan
Left alone.
As the delicate rose
To the suns sweet strength
Doth herself unclose,
Breadth and length:
So spreads my heart to thee
Unveiled utterly,
I to thee
Utterly.
As morning dew exhales
Sunwards pure and free,
So my spirit fails
After thee:
As dew leaves not a trace
On the green earths face;
I, no trace
On thy face.
Its goal the river knows,
Dewdrops find a way,
Sunlight cheers the rose
In her day:
Shall I, lone sorrow past,
Find thee at the last?
Sorrow past,
Thee at last?

67

Chapter Fifteen : Presence

Genesis 3: 21 And the LORD God made garments of
skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them.
Genesis 4: 13 Cain said to the LORD, My
punishment is greater than I can bear! 14 Today you
have driven me away from the soil, and I shall be
hidden from your face; I shall be a fugitive and a
wanderer on the earth, and anyone who meets me
may kill me. 15 Then the LORD said to him, Not so!
Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold
vengeance. And the LORD put a mark on Cain
Easter Morning
William Stafford
Maybe someone comes to the door and says
Repent and you say, Come on in and its
Jesus. Thats when all you ever did, or said,
or even thought, suddenly wakes up again and
sings out, Im still here, and you know its true.
You just shiver alive and are left standing
There suddenly brought to account: saved.
Except, maybe that someone says, Ive got a deal
for you. And you listen, because thats how
youre trained- they told you, Always hear both sides.
So then the slick voice can sell you anything, even
Hell, which is what you are getting by listening.
Well, what should you do? Id say always go to
the door, yes, but keep the screen locked. Then,
while you hold the Bible in one hand, lean forward
and say carefully, Jesus?
Psalm 121
Michael Wigglesworth
68

I to the hills lift up mine eyes,

from whence shall come mine aid.
Mine help doth from Jehovah come,
which heaven and earth hath made.
He will not let thy foot be moved,
nor slumber; that thee keeps.
Lo he that keepth Israel,
he slumbreth not, nor sleeps.
The Lord thy keeper is, the Lord
on thy right hand the shade.
The sun by day, nor moon by night,
shall thee by stroke invade.
The Lord will keep thee from all ill:
thy soul he keeps alway,
Thy going out, and thy income
the Lord keeps now and aye.

A Great Pilgrimage
Kabir
I felt in need of a great pilgrimage
so I sat still for three
days
and God came
to me.

Fishing in the Keep of Silence

Linda Gregg
69

There is a hush now while the hills rise up

and God is going to sleep. He trusts the ship
of Heaven to take over and proceed beautifully
as he lies dreaming in the lap of the world.
He knows the owls will guard the sweetness of the
soul in their massive keep of silence,
looking out with eyes open or closed over
the length of Tomales Bay that the herons
conform to, whitely broad in flight, white
and slim in standing. God, who thinks about
poetry all the time, breathes happily as He
repeats to Himself: there are fish in the net,
lots of fish this time in the net of the heart.

70

Psalm 23
from The Bay Psalm Book
The Lord to me a shepherd is,
Want therefore I shall not,
He in the folds of tender grass
Doth make me down to lie
To waters calm he gently leads
Restore my soul doth he
He doth in paths of righteousness
For his names sake lead me.
Yea though in valley of deaths shade
I walk none ill Ill fear,
Because thou art with me, thy rod,
and staff my comfort are.
For me a table thou hast spread
In presence of my foes;
Thou dost annoint my head with oil
My cup it over-flows.
Goodness and mercy surely shall
All my days follow me;
And in the Lords house I shall dwell
So long as days shall be.

71

Pax
D.H. Lawrence
All that matters is to be at one with the living God
to be a creature in the house of the God of Life.
Like a cat asleep on a chair
at peace, in peace
and at one with the master of the house, with the
mistress,
at home, at home in the house of the living,
sleeping on the hearth, and yawning before the fire.
Sleeping on the hearth of the living world
yawning at home before the fire of life
feeling the presence of the living God
like a great reassurance
a deep calm in the heart
a presence
as of the master sitting at the board
in his own and greater being,
in the house of life.

72

Psalm 139
The Inescapable God
To the leader. Of David. A Psalm.
1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
3 You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
O LORD, you know it completely.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
7 Where

can I go from your spirit?

Or where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
11 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

73

13 For

it was you who formed my inward parts;

you knit me together in my mothers womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully
made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
15
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.
23 Search

me, O God, and know my heart;

test me and know my thoughts.
24 See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

74